I seemed to run into Don on regular occasions, alas a semi ran him down in Arizona.
I think the point, in respect to the Alton Mine, is that it will be used to satisfy the energy demands of growing light pollution. I am convinced the only way we will conserve is if electricity is less abundant. The large open pit coal mine is also a temporary solution to a long term problem. Watching the discussion about the Alton mine and darks skies reminded
me of a presentation former SLASer Don Higgins gave at an astronomy conference near Cheyenne years ago. He had moved to SE Arizona but Karen and I kept bumping into him as he traveled the west doing work for the IDA. We arrived on the 2nd day of the conference. As we walked in we were greeted by whomerver was in charge and told a dstinguised guest from the IDA would give a presentation in a half hour. We looked across the room and saw Don setting up. We went up to him and immediately started to harass him. The person in charge was horrified! What I remember from Don's presentation was a series of overhead projections showing NASA's North America At Night pictures in 10 year intervals. It was horrifying to see the amount of dark space shrink by about 50% every decade! Don died in 2004. I did an internet search for "Don Higgins astronomer" and came up with this obituary. There were other articles also.
http://www.willcoxrangenews.com/articles/2004/05/19/news/news6.txt
Deloy Pierce _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php